Today I found a great article on board leadership: “Boards: The Right Person To Lead One”.
Within the article, the author states “If you’re constructing an advisory board for your business, you need to be clear about its role and judicious in the choice and range of directors. But there’s no decision more important than who leads your meetings.
“This can’t be you. Why not? Because to get the best out of your board, the directors or advisors need to feel able to challenge and question you. That’s a lot less likely to happen when you run the meeting. What you want is someone you trust, preferably someone you admire and who has the success of the business as his or her only goal. This is a mentoring role, not a career steppingstone.”
The author is spot on here. Too many company founders want to do it all. Most founders are too close to their product; too sensitive to make the difficult decisions. As a founder you should be involved in the big decision and that means being a part of the discussion, not the person running the meeting. The chair of the meeting needs to be passive; someone that steers the meeting in the right direction and gets the most out of the discussion. They can’t be the focal point.
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